Predator: Killer Of Killers Director Shares The Hong Kong Action Classic That Blew His Mind [Exclusive Interview]

Dan Trachtenberg is now two for two in the "Predator" franchise. 

His 2022 movie "Prey," which was released straight to Hulu amid the height of the streaming wars, revitalized a franchise that was flagging in the aftermath of Shane Black's messy 2018 movie "The Predator," and gave Trachtenberg the opportunity to direct another movie in that franchise called "Predator: Badlands," which is coming to theaters later this year. But the writer/director, who has been elevated to a position of overseeing the franchise, didn't stop there — while making "Badlands," he also co-wrote and directed "Predator: Killer of Killers," an animated anthology project that hit Hulu this past Friday.

Simply put, the new movie rules. It opens up the world in fascinating ways, the animation looks like concept art come to life, and the action is some of the most jaw-dropping and accomplished of the entire franchise. I caught up with Trachtenberg over Zoom and spoke to him about crafting those amazing action scenes, how connected he wants this film to be to the live-action movies, why underdog tropes make so much sense for this franchise, and more.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Before we dig into "Killer of Killers," I would love for you to walk me through the timeline of how we arrived at this movie. So you make "Prey," it's a huge hit on Hulu. And in February of 2024, news breaks that you're going to direct "Badlands" and basically take the reins of the "Predator" franchise. Was that overseer type of role something that you pitched to the studio? Did they come to you? How did that happen?

Dan Trachtenberg: Right as "Prey" was coming to a close, people were feeling good about it. So I took that runway to start allowing myself to anticipate them saying, "What would you do for a sequel?" I hadn't given it one thought. The whole point of "Prey" was, "Let me do something that hasn't been done," not at all like, "Of course they're going to make tons of these." You know? So it was then I started thinking about what even would I do and really feeling satisfied that we made something less expected and people liked. 

It was rewarded for that, as opposed to — there was a period in maybe the early 2000s or mid-2000s, I don't know, mid-aughts or whatever, where it felt like success was inevitable for sequels and franchises. The next "Transformers" movie, regardless of its quality, we knew when doing the /Film Summer [Movie] Wager, it was going to make a poop-ton of money. Any sequel would make a poop-ton of money. And we've exited that era. The last "Transformers" movie — I didn't see it, but I think people really liked it — it didn't do great business. It's not inevitable. What feels great about the moment we're in is that people are really craving new experiences and to go on rides they have not been on. 

So that's where I went. It wasn't like, "Okay, what's just the next minute of the last movie I made?", even though thinking about that started to breed some really exciting ideas. But really, if I had to do it all over again, how could I tell a fresh story in the franchise? So in thinking of that, a bunch of cool ideas came to mind. I have said now three specifically: One of them is "Killer of Killers," one of them is "Badlands," and then there's a definitive third very cool idea. But beyond that, to make sense of it all, I definitely did approach the studio with, "You know, we could do a really cool overarching thing, should we have more success." But the primary focus was on "Badlands" initially, and then, quickly thereafter, setting up "Killer of Killers."

Well, I'm very excited for "Badlands."

"Killer of Killers" is so awesome, man. I really want to talk to you about the action in this movie, because it's just incredible. How did you approach the challenge of creating these amazing fight scenes? There are a lot of different fight styles across these different eras. So what was your kind of overarching approach going into that?

I'm glad you dug it in that way. I think to launch it off, I will say, I'm a huge action film junkie, specifically Hong Kong action movies of the '80s and early '90s were really my awakening. I think the feeling that people had watching the Star Destroyer come overhead in the beginning of "Star Wars" — which I also loved and was very impactful to me — but that specific [feeling] like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm seeing what I'm seeing," that, for me, was seeing "Hard Boiled." For the first time, I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was seeing. And probably maybe a year or two before that, specific to "Killer of Killers," was seeing "Akira." And there's specifically that move in the beginning of the movie, but the end of the bike chase when Kaneda steps off the front tire and does a kick. It's a move that is so cool, so inventive, and could never happen really in live-action.

So I was certainly trying to chase that in making "Killer of Killers," and embracing the medium of animation allowed us to do action in a way that we haven't in live-action. And I should also say one of the secrets in the recipe is working with The Third Floor pre-viz team that always does incredible action sequences that sometimes we're able to replicate. I say "we," as in, me and every other director that's out there. I've been involved with Third Floor for so long now, I've seen so much of their work obviously through the things I've done, but even seeing other movies or dead projects that never took off, and they do incredible work. And now in animation, we get to see it through to the end without the limitations of ... not even the limitations of a camera, necessarily, because we certainly try to be as strict as possible for the most part. Not all the time, but for the most part and making this as if we were making something the way we had always for movie screens and TV screens.

But really just because things arise, problems come up, and a stunt coordinator can't acquire this thing that you need to pull this thing off, or whatever it is. We were boundless in pulling off our action. We also worked with a stunt coordinator for The Sword chapter that I had developed a relationship with on "Prey" named Jeremy Marinas, who's with the 87Eleven team. I think he just did the "Ballerina" movie that came out the same weekend. He's really incredible and helped ensure that the fights were surprisingly authentic for martial arts nerds or historians. They're fighting with a pretty strict amount of authenticity, in the ways they're wielding their weapons or their swords in particular. But also coming up with really cool things and allowing me to riff on cool things that I haven't really been able to unleash in an action sense the way I'd always wanted to, in the way that was burning inside of me in high school when I would go off in a daydream and picture my own Jackie Chan fight, what I would do with Jackie. It's just been burning inside me and boiling and boiling, and was really allowed to unleash in this movie.

As well as all the other artists that had awesome ideas. Everyone really, there was a lot of like, "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if we did this then? Wouldn't it be cool if we did this then?" And certainly I can have the start of an idea. The oner in the Viking chapter. As they are in live-action, oftentimes — not always — certainly for me, oftentimes the oner is a solution to a production problem. And that was a sequence where we needed to have them raid, and we could not afford to build the entire village, but it needed to be a big fight. We needed to show their prowess for the Predator to be able to see how awesome they are and to target them. And the whole thing was building to this raid, and we had some earlier action stuff that got cut for time. So we were kind of putting all our chips on this thing, but we couldn't show everything. What could we do?

So I just had the idea of it feeling like it's a football field and we are behind the quarterback in Ursa, and we are charging. The camera is really just locked to her. We can look a little bit left, a little bit right, but we're really hinged to her. And using that shield in inventive ways. Then someone comes up with, 'Then she grabs this arrow and [does this]!', and then I get to say, 'Then the arrows are filled on the shield, and you can bash them into a face!' And then someone else gets to go 'Oh my god, and ...' We're constantly geeking out and amplifying the sequence.

Did you use any rotoscoping or anything?

No, it's all hand animated — or keyframe animation, I should say. The funny thing is the pre-viz, and we pre-vized the whole movie in four months thanks to the expertise of Third Floor, and the action scenes for The Sword were mocapped for the pre-viz, but then when they're animated, that's thrown away. And just like any animation, it's used as reference, just using animators looking at themselves doing a thing, or in this case, they now have this great reference of what Jeremy and his team was doing. So yeah, it was always keyframe animated, just with visual reference like any animation was made from the very beginning.

So assuming this movie does well enough to earn a sequel, do you consider the animated movies to be off in their own corner of the universe, or are we going to see some of the aftermath of "Killer of Killers" plot spill into "Badlands" or other future live-action projects?

I mean, I like to think that the very end of the movie ensures that it is not off in its own little corner, that they do touch. But I'm also keenly aware, and I was nervous, that people might view the animated movie as homework for the live-action. I sometimes feel like, in all the universes that are out there, that sometimes, with so much coming out around the same time, that things can feel like homework. And I'm not the first director to say this, but no movie is contingent that you see the others to enjoy them.

Gotcha. So from what I understand about "Badlands," all of your "Predator" projects so far are underdog stories about characters who are trying to prove themselves. Is there something about this franchise specifically that makes it a great fit for that storytelling approach?

Yeah, because the Predator, or the Yautja, are coming from two different planets, looking for a great hunt, looking for the alpha, and sometimes dismissing things that do not appear to be worthy. So if your antagonist is looking for what's worthy, then certainly your protagonist should be someone who is becoming worthy, or there's a little bit less conflict there. However, I think we found in the first two chapters of "Killer of Killers," a way to tell the human story. I think the third one is very much an underdog story and where it goes from there, but I think the first two are certainly a way to approach the human side of a "Predator" story without relying on the underdog genre.

Yeah, totally. All right, so I think I have one more minute with you. Are all of the Yautja hunters, or are we only seeing one corner of their culture?

Well, yes and yes. We are only seeing one corner of their culture, but I do think it's a significant part of their culture. But in general, I'm a little bored by — and why they aren't all wearing the exact same mask and why they don't all look identical and why they behave in slightly different ways is, I get a little bored when we see Kashyyyk, the Wookiee planet or whatever, and they're all just a bunch of Chewbaccas. Some have a little bit of a gray fur and some of them [don't], but they're all basically just Chewbacca, just standing around being Wookiees. [Or an] ice planet. The entire planet is ice, as opposed to no, just like us, we have ice on this part of the planet. And it's kind of the exciting thing about Pandora, is it treats planetary stuff a little bit more realistically. Obviously, James Cameron's the master of that.

But no, I think species-wise, they should be as varied, at least, as we are. But there's definitely a culture rooted in warriordom, and I see them as a combination of, for lack of a better terms, the Frank Frazetta/Conan aesthetic and those fibers mixed with a Spartan-like culture that prides themselves on strength and brutality.

"Predator: Killer of Killers" is streaming on Hulu now.